


Empty Eyes

by PhantomEngineer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 15:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13906869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: As a child Severus hallucinated. They faded away when he left behind his miserable childhood and went to Hogwarts. After killing Dumbledore, they return, a constant nuisance as he goes about the necessities of performing his duties to bring about the downfall of Voldemort. Potentially discomforting imagery. Canon compliant.





	Empty Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> The idea belongs to doewept (from tumblr), I just wrote it.

The man who stood in the road was back again. Severus could see him from the window, from every window. Sometimes he could see him even without a need for a window, walls and reality bending to show him there. Standing there, waiting. He hadn't seen him, felt the oppressive presence since he left for Hogwarts as a child. He knew the man wasn't real. He could make himself see the way reality distorted. He could make himself see nothing where the man stood. No one else ever seemed to notice the man, both now and then.

He wasn't real, but Severus felt the cold tendrils of dread wrapping themselves round his brain, digging in like thorns and nails, poking. It hurt, jarring his teeth and making him feel sick. If he thought too much he could feel hands clawing at his face, fingers forcing their way into his mouth and down his throat until he gagged.

The man wasn't real. He had researched at Hogwarts, carefully. Afraid of what he might be, what he might mean. But nowhere, even in the darkest of texts, could he find a reference to men who stood on the street and waited. Besides, all the magical beings he could find all had faces. The man didn't.

He could smell the macaroni mixed with split nostrils again. He'd never known how he knew that's what it was, when the delightful smell he smelt when he saw Lily remained a mystery jam mixed with rice pudding. But he knew with certainty it was cooked, cold plain macaroni mixed with slit human nostrils. He didn't like to think about it too much. He couldn’t even explain how he knew what that’s what the smell was, he just did. But now the whole house seemed saturated in the scent, and he couldn't escape from it anymore. At least as a child it had only been the occasional unpleasant whiff. 

He buried his face in his hands as he ran his hands through his hair and he clawed at his hands in despair, nails scratching along his forearms. He didn't want to think about how many hands he had, to force himself to focus on which pair were the real ones.  
"I'm going to kill myself," he heard his voice say calmly, echoing through his mind, knowing he wasn't going to and that he hadn't spoken a word. Why was it so bad, so suddenly. A few smells, tastes, the odd voice and the man who stood in the road, they'd played a part in his childhood but they'd gone away, faded to nothing as he grew up. Why were they back, only worse and more overwhelming than before?  
He knew it wasn't magic. Illusions and spells couldn't replicate a hallucination. They could show you imagines, create sensations but they were different from the real thing, if a hallucination could ever be called a real thing. It was stress, he knew, the constant pressure of playing so many various roles, tipped over by that moment on the tower. He had no choice but to continue, to play his part. There was too much at stake.

He stepped over Harry Potter’s corpse - just a shadow, a trick of the light - focusing on reality. The real reality, the reality everyone else was a part of, the one his mind was distorting and twisting into a nightmare. The one where Potter’s corpse didn’t swing from every tree branch, until he looked again and could see there was nothing. Just dark shadows playing with his mind.

Hopeless, it was hopeless. There was nothing to take away the images, the sounds, the smells or even the tastes. Everything tasted like wolfsbane. He’d never tasted wolfsbane. Everything tasted like wolfsbane. His appetite died, just like Albus had died. No matter what he ate it choked him, the bitter, acrid taste. When he didn’t eat, the taste lingered on his tongue, that no scrubbing - futile scrubbing - would ease. Even saving Lupin’s life, but his spell missed and hit the Weasley boy, couldn’t do anything for the taste lingering. It made him feel sick, with no time, no peace of mind to find a potion to do anything to help. No magic could save him, like no magic could reattach the ear. No magic could save Potter, he was doomed to die. Everything was hopeless but still he had his role.

Time had eased his childhood hallucinations, long before he’d known the word hallucinations and now he knew it he knew never to speak of it. Voldemort could never know. If Albus was alive, he would never be able to trust him. Did you really see that, Severus, or did you just hallucinate it? He could almost hear the kindly old voice mocking him. But he knew reality, he could hold it together, he had no choice. The pressure was killing him but soon he could die. Before that he had to save the children, he had to help Potter - who wasn’t dead, no matter how many times Severus stepped over his corpse, his corpse was everywhere, in every shadow, in every corner, even in his bed once, that one time - he had to fulfil his duty. He had to ensure that this would result in the end of Voldemort.

He was grateful he no longer needed to teach. Listening to the Carrows, holding the school together somehow, constantly assuring Voldemort of every tiny detail, it was hard enough without Albus constantly whispering in his ear, even though it wasn’t really his ear but his mind and it wasn’t really Albus just his mind consuming itself.

“Severus, please,” Albus whispered, “You disgust me,” as Severus gave the Weasley girl, Lovegood and Longbottom detention with Hagrid.

“Severus, you disgust me, please,” Albus whispered as Severus watched Potter - real, alive, but for how much longer - collect the sword. Severus ignored him, ignored Potter’s corpse - not real, he’d just seen the real, living boy - and returned to his prison of a school.

A snake slithered up his body, writhing uncomfortably against him as he slept at night. It wasn’t real, there was nothing there. For the first time in so long, he cried, afraid, kneeling on the bathroom floor after being sick with the horror. His own mind was creating a snake to caress and violate him, it’s non-existent body and tongue touching him in places he didn’t want to imagine, didn’t want to remember, but it was all his mind, his own mind slithering across his body with scales and a gently hiss of a tongue. He cried and cried as the snake worked its way up his body.

“Please, you disgust me Severus,” Albus whispered to him, as Potter’s lifeless corpse stayed thankfully silent in the corner.

The snake stayed, a constant part of his daily life, just like Albus’s voice and the need to step round Potter’s corpse. It stopped writhing around his lower body after the first few nights, only venturing below the belt one long meeting with Voldemort when it took all of Severus’s ability with Occlumency not to retch or possibly throw up on Voldemort’s shoes, but he controlled it. No matter what his subconscious might think, Severus was in control.

It took up position, wound around his chest, squeezing lightly. He felt the tension in his lungs, the way he found it harder to breathe. The snake would nuzzle his throat, licking his jugular. He didn’t flinch, it wasn’t real. He had to finish the job, then he could fall apart and die. Nothing else mattered. Potter’s corpse was in the corner again.

“Please me, Severus,” Albus whispered as he faced Minerva, Potter’s corpse between them, and the real Potter alive behind her.

Even though the snake wasn’t real, he still had to move around it. Undressing and dressing became harder, and the snake would clench down on his ribs, squeezing, when he made a movement it didn’t like. It didn’t mind flying.

“Disgust me, Severus,” Albus whispered, as he landed and the snake seemed to relax, hugging him now in something akin to comfort rather than the vice-like crush. It nuzzled his neck almost tenderly. He stepped over Potter’s corpse. Soon, Potter would be a corpse, a real one. Would he notice? He hoped he wouldn’t survive to see the real corpse.

The snake receded, giving way to a real snake. The soft nuzzle that he’d fought so hard to avoid, flinching from, became a bite, tearing at the flesh.

“Severus, please, you disgust me,” Albus whispered, as he fell. The snake - not Nagini, his snake, the one that wasn’t real - lapped at the wound. It draped itself over him, keening, almost trying to provide comfort. He let his gaze fall on Potter’s corpse, lying beside him, empty green eyes staring vacantly. His vision blurred. 

The real Potter, the living Potter replaced the corpse. Albus was silent. The snake was gentle. Potter was alive.

“Look at me,” he implored, and Potter did.

And Lily smiled.


End file.
